The Godfather (1972)

The Data Points

• Year Released: 1972

• Runtime: 175 Minutes

• Directed: Francis Ford Coppola

• Produced: Albert Ruddy, Gray Frederickson

• Starring: Marlon Brando, Al Pacino, James Caan, Robert Duvall, Diane Keaton, Richard Castellano, Sterling Hayden

• Oscars:

  • Won: Best Picture, Best Adapted Screenplay, Best Actor (Brando)

  • Nominated: Best Supporting Actor x3 (Caan, Duvall, Pacino), Best Director, Best Costume Design, Best Sound, Best Editing, Best Original Score

• IMDb Plot Summary: The aging patriarch of an organized crime dynasty in postwar New York City transfers control of his clandestine empire to his reluctant youngest son.

Why The Godfather is Great

The Accessibility. When this film debuted, it was also a pop culture sensation. It was the highest-grossing film of its year, selling nearly 80 million tickets (https://www.the-numbers.com/market/1972/top-grossing-movies). This isn’t an indication that audiences in the 70’s somehow had better taste and only sought out the artsiest fare; the other top 5 grossers were The Poseidon Adventure, What’s Up Doc, Deliverance, and the pornographic film Deep Throat. In fact, if you were to describe what happens in the middle hour of this movie, it would go as follows: Aging Don Vito Corleone is shot on orders from a drug dealer looking to make inroads to New York. After Michael Corleone kills that drug dealer and a corrupt police captain who broke his jaw, he flees to Sicily while war breaks out between the Corleones and a rival family who backed the drug dealer. That is still an entertaining premise for a story today. All the violence and lengthy moments of suspense are filmed so elegantly and take place in such a gorgeously conceived 1940’s setting that overlooking the very lurid and entertaining nature of the story is easy, but we ought not take it for granted. There’s also a stupidly high number of quotes that have permeated the lexicon of American culture the way that stuff from Star Wars or Jaws did (“An offer you can’t refuse”, “Leave the gun, take the cannoli”, “Sleeps with the fishes”, etc.) This is no coincidence, as The Godfather is, in its bones, a crime thriller made for mass consumption.

While being a blockbuster at its core, it engages both head and heart in a way that is rare amongst popular offerings. The movie rewards your attention and refuses to insult your intelligence throughout its perfectly controlled pace. Some events are kept offscreen and only relayed through dialogue; characters will begin doing something, and only later reveal what they were doing and why; orders will be given quietly and then acted on 10 minutes later. There are also a few questions that aren’t immediately answered, but the film delivers on its revelations. However, this isn’t a cold, heady exercise like Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy. These characters have beating hearts and leap off the screen, and the film is as concerned with their lives and relationships as it is with their “work”. We cannot help but root for them, even as they feud with each other, cheat on their wives, and order murders (in multiple instances). They genuinely feel like a family, and so their melodramas are as compelling as any of the underworld intrigue, which the film balances excellently, yet another credit towards its mass appeal.

The Artistry. Everything I’ve alluded to so far, if directed with some style, could have made for one of the better crime thrillers/dramas of the 70’s, a decade that was flush with excellent offerings of a similar type. Thanks to the vision of Francis Ford Coppola and his key collaborators, an entertaining mafia film became one of the most beautiful and enduring cinematic experiences of all time. Cinema doesn’t need vistas and sunsets to be beautiful; sometimes a little gold and a lot of shadow is all you need. Cinematographer Gordon Willis captured dark interiors like no one has before or since, perfectly blending naturalism (these guys would be sitting in a dark room) with thematic expression (corruption, power, secrecy). Additionally, each frame is carefully arranged and composed in a way that feels immediately timeless. Because the camera rarely moves, the actors are free to move around in the frame, and their movements work to underscore the subtext of a scene.

Though this film isn’t known for flashy rapid-fire editing, this process was key. The team had to assemble and pare down a massive amount of beautiful footage to a length that the demanding Paramount would be content with. The meticulous pace of the movie is also a credit to the editing team, but to name a specific example, the entire wedding sequence is an impressive feat of cross cutting that introduces us to multiple characters and plots in different situations within one massive gathering. For an even more impressively compressed sequence, one needs look no further than the singular Baptism Murder Montage, which is so famous that it needs no discussion. At every level – the production design/sets, locations, costumes, editing, cinematography, stunts – it feels like the perfect decision was made, and there’s one person to thank for bringing every element together immaculately: Francis Ford Coppola.

One key aspect of the director’s job, that I don’t discuss enough, is managing the production; as far as that’s concerned, Coppola was an underdog. This production didn’t have many champions at the studio, so time and money were hard to come by. He had to personally push for the cast that he wanted, and at every turn it seemed like the project may collapse. Considering all this, just getting the film across the finish line would have made for one of the more compelling behind-the-scenes stories to come out of Hollywood. However, Coppola created a masterpiece. This film is very stately and gorgeous to look at but isn’t stuffy in the slightest. He lets the cameras roll when he knows his actors can cook, completely willing to trust that they understand the characters as well as he does. He also complements their nuanced performances by giving close-ups for us to see a whole range of emotion cross every character’s face, and yet everything is held at such a remove for us to make judgments of our own. He organizes a crowded wedding, several mafia hits, elegant meetings, and quiet dinners as cinematically as one can; anyone who wants to film a group of people talking to each other should pay attention to how he does it here. He effectively communicates what true power is, without any character having to explain it: power is quiet, the most significant orders are given quietly if verbally at all, and those around you who would attempt to steal it never reveal their intentions.

The Depth. Though I’m shifting my focus away from the craft of the movie and towards its greater meaning, it’s worth reiterating that it all functions as a piece; this film, though entertaining in its story, has thematically rich undertones that are as evoked in the filmmaking as through any close reading of the screenplay. I also think if you want to start thinking about movies more deeply, watching this movie and trying to read into it is a great starting point. In my extremely formative Film Studies class in high school, my teacher screened this movie, wrote “Michael is America” on the whiteboard, and we took it from there. That concept still holds; a decorated, uniformed military officer coming back home after WWII and wading into increasingly dark moral territory is a neat allegory for American decline. This story also functions as an exploration of capitalism, as the Corleone family with their murders, prostitutions, gambling, and ultimately drug trafficking is the “family business” after all. My assumption, however, is that audiences most related to this film’s positioning of the American underworld as the moral center of the movie.

5 years earlier, The Graduate and Bonnie and Clyde had opened the door for charming cinematic antiheroes that spoke to a generation of counterculture (Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid would do it again in 1969), but this film was far more explicit in flipping the notions of power in America on their heads. Don Corleone, in the very first scene and throughout the movie, is described as “carrying politicians in his pocket”; the only police officer with serious screentime is corrupt and trying to aid in a murder; and one of Michael’s very best lines implies that Kay is being naïve for not assuming that “senators and presidents have men killed.” 5 years into an unpopular war without end, and two years shy of Watergate (though 4 years into Nixon), these sentiments about American government being as shady as a mafia underworld struck true enough that this film won Best Picture and Screenplay.

The text of the film, separate from any symbolic meaning, is quite Shakespearean, as Michael’s descent into his family business is ultimately a tragedy. There are feuds with rivals (other mafia families instead of kingdoms or tribes), elaborate plots to destabilize the throne, and gobs of juicy familial conflict. It’s a credit to Coppola and the cast that this subject matter surpasses melodrama and enters the realm of pure Drama.

The Cast. The underdog nature of this production extended to its cast, even though it had an Oscar winner in its ranks. Coppola recruited a young troupe of New York theater actors who had only just recently began working in Hollywood to make up the principals of his cast, and that decision paid off in spades; audiences’ lack of familiarity with most of the actors when they first saw the film increased the authenticity of the characters, and more importantly their familial relationships. Even after all this time, I have to remind myself that I’m watching Al Pacino, James Caan, Robert Duvall, Marlon Brando and not the characters they play. It’s not a question of thinking the characters “actually exist”, but each performance is just that singular for me. The recently departed, and sure to be missed, James Caan might be having the most fun out of anyone while playing Sonny Corleone, but in the quiet moments the true depths that he cares for his brothers come out in splendid detail. John Cazale doesn’t have much to do as the diminutive Fredo, but he makes the most of his limited screentime. Diane Keaton is pitch perfect as Kay, the proxy for the audience, whose sweet disposition and devotion to Michael exposes the arc his character undergoes. Robert Duvall’s performance is a sneaky favorite of mine, as in this morally compromised world he seems the moral center; he gently bends with the movie and is just two steps shy of being too cold with his logic yet is still clearly a caring brother. Al Pacino’s performance is the one that rewards revisiting the most. It’s full of nuance, and the range he exhibits from the young, bright-eyed veteran to the calculating mafia chieftain is tremendous, but what’s most impressive is that you never doubt they are the same person. On rewatch, the beast he becomes is lurking inside of him in the earliest moments he’s onscreen.

Of course, I have to kiss the Don’s ring. Marlon Brando, after establishing himself as something like the Daniel Day-Lewis of the 1950s, experienced a relative slump in the 1960s. Imagine audiences’ shock when he hits the screen in that immaculate close-up, wielding some jowly prosthetics, sporting a raspy voice and thick accent, and affecting a whole host of mannerisms. Despite all that, his performance is precise enough to create not just an iconic character, but an understandable one. He is by turns intimidating and warm, often toggling between the two not just in the same scene, but in one of Coppola’s unbroken close-ups. I don’t think it’s exaggeration to say that Don Vito Corleone is one of the most singular, iconic, and indelible characters to ever hit the screen.

50 Years on the Throne. 50 years later, and not only has this film not lost an ounce of its power, but its power seems to have grown. For all the hoity-toity critical praise that it’s received over the years, it also has the reputation of being the ultimate “classic” because it remains deeply watchable, quotable, and lovable. Its most iconic moments and images include sensational acts of violence, threats, and tense confrontations. However, the grand beauty of its filmmaking, emotional precision, and thematic depth not only continue to resonate, but still feel perfectly married to a crime thriller with both brains and heart behind it. Its elevated status amongst everyday audiences and cinephiles alike hasn’t dimmed, but it's one of the few that members of both crowds will be quick to name as a personal favorite – something that doesn’t happen as much for, say, Citizen Kane. Its thematic overtones about American moral decline and corporate greed continue to resonate 50 years on from its release. Perhaps it’s a sense of jadedness that allows us to continue turning to the Don for guidance; in this movie’s world of evil, his way is often positioned as the most just way. Unfortunately for us, and him, times are changing and even he can’t live forever.